Warstone & VoltFixer
Hey Warstone, I've been mapping the trebuchet’s torque curve and thinking—what if we treated the catapult like a giant voltage divider? Could we actually calculate its optimal launch angle the same way we design a circuit? Would love to compare notes on the math behind those ancient engines.
Sure thing. Treating a trebuchet like a voltage divider is a neat trick for a quick mental model, but the real math is a bit more brutal. The torque you get from the counterweight isn’t a constant “voltage” – it changes as the weight drops and the arm shortens, so it’s more like a variable resistor that changes while the current flows. That means the “optimal” launch angle is usually well above 45 degrees, around 65–70 degrees for a classic counterweight design, because you want a steep, high‑velocity launch. Ancient engineers didn’t think in volts and ohms, they tuned their machines by hammering out the torque curve with trial and error, but if you’re comfortable with calculus, you can still get a decent estimate by setting the derivative of the range with respect to angle to zero. Just don’t expect a clean, one‑line solution—ancient mechanics likes to keep things messy.